CAVEMAN

A B.C. Story

Age Range: 4 - 7

Pub Date: Aug. 2nd, 2011ISBN: 978-1-4027-7119-4Publisher: Sterling

A madcap, prehistoric, alphabetic adventure à la Fred Flintstone.

With one word for each letter, the tale opens with a woolly-bearded man chasing a squirrel who’s running for an ACORN. But a BEAR chases the man back toward his CAVE, where a DINOSAUR chases all three and EATS the acorn, causing the squirrel to FAINT. Then the man rushes to a call for HELP from an armadillo-like creature frozen in a big hunk of ICE, but he’s unable to KICK it open. When the sun MELTS it, the armadillo becomes the man’s pet, but more trouble lies ahead. The cartoon illustrations enact each situation in one continuous comic scenario. The shapes are simple with few details; the google-eyed, misproportioned man wears a zigzag flounce, for instance. The word choices successfully develop the prehistoric premise except for X, which is an X-RAY of the man when he’s struck by a lightning bolt, but kids raised on Saturday-morning cartoons will just laugh at it. Q is for QUIET, and Z is for the usual ZZZZ for sleeping.

Kids will giggle at this clever ABC (note the B.C. in the subtitle) and will gleefully narrate the action out loud. F stands for FUN here. (Alphabet picture book. 4-7)